Sharing my love of Dutch Oven cooking with everyday recipes and tips for the outdoor cook.

Thursday, July 30, 2015

Caramelized Pear Cake

When I saw this recipe for Caramelized Pear Cake from a 2000 edition of Bon Appetit, I rushed right out to get what I needed to make it in my dutch oven. I would definitely categorize this cake as cook-off worthy, it's not only visually impressive but the aroma of ginger and cinnamon makes you positively heady.
First I mixed the batter, lit my coals, then quickly peeled and arranged the pears for the topping. You may want to slice and place them with more precision than I did, especially if you're trying to impress the judges. The cake baked in my 10 inch oven with 10 briquettes in a ring around the bottom, 16 in a ring around the edge of the lid with 6 spaced evenly in the center. After 20 minutes I removed 2 of the center coals and in exactly 40 minutes my tester came out clean and the cake was done.
Once you have your ingredients organized, it's really not that difficult to make and infinitely better than a packaged mix. One of the absolute best recipes I've made so far in my dutch oven, the cake is so moist and with a hint of ginger, cinnamon and orange, topped with sweetened fresh pears, it's a definite blue ribbon winner.

19 comments:

Hey Liddy. I've been itching to make this since you posted it. My wife had a 40 lb box of pears on order and it came in a few days ago. So today I made this cake and it is as good as you say. It turned out beautiful and tasted amazing. The kids approve and we all ate more than we should have. Thanks for posting!